Just saw this... really great. It was actually the first Herzog movie I've ever seen (not much of a film guy) and I loved the armchair philosophy voiceover. From what I had read I was expecting it to be so much more overbearing than it was. I also loved the crocodiles. Stroszek next, right?

Mike might disagree, but I would say Stroszek is a bit of a cold bath if you're not really used to Herzog at his Herzoggiest. Among his fiction films, I would say Aguirre, Fitzcarraldo, or even The Mystery of Kaspar Hauser strike a steadier balance between deep Herzogism and "normal" entertainment values. Among his documentaries, if you liked Cave I'm sure you'd like Grizzly Man.

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"Another thing that interests me about The Eagles is that I hate them." -- Robert Christgau

There was this group of girls in the theater that laughed (like they 'understand' Herzog's sense of humor and no one else does) loudly at a few things that weren't very funny. It sucks that Herzog is now 'that crazy guy' the everyone takes pride in themselves for knowing about.

I saw this, in the UK, in an audience largely of older people (the cinema has a pensioner deal on the evening I saw it), and they were howling with laughter all the way through, as if the people being interviewed were selected for their comedy value. It was quite irritating. I would hate to have seen Fata Morgana witht them. I mean, Bad Lieutenant and My Son, My Son.... are obviously played for some laughs, but Herzog's German films, though wry, are largely short on belly laughs. It does seem that Herzog's revival has coincided with him becoming some kind of eccentric figure of fun.

I 'got into' Herzog after reading about Fitzcarraldo in about 1995, and the general attitude then was that his career had collapsed following that and now he was reduced to making TV documentaries. Although I don't think they are his best work, I think it's been amazing that his career has revived to the point that I have been able to see three new feature films theatrically in a 12 month period.

I didn't see it 3D, and can't see how it would have benefitted that much. I only really felt that the film became 'immersed' in the paintings in the final reels anyhow, most of it is produced in a similar way to his 90/00's TV docs like Wings Of Hope or The White Diamond.

Oh, man... I saw "Grizzly Man" in a local theater. I still remember the nervous laughter from the audience when he spoke into the camer then reached over and petted a fucking grizzly bear on the snot. It's easily the single most insane thing I think I've ever seen in a movie. The closest I would ever come is the closest I have come to seeing a grizzly: Spying them through binoculars at Yellowstone...

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"Paradise is exactly like where you are right now. Only much, much better."

is that he DID get away with how he lived among and treated the bears. He never even got hurt until he broke all his own rules, staying too late and being among the unfamiliar and much more desperate late-season bears. Apparently he WAS able to live among the bears as long as he stuck to the (still crazy) way that he'd been doing it.

Also, I watched him talk for about an hour and ten minutes - did he ever say anything of import? In our expanded ability to talk and communicate, have we lost the ability to actually say anything?